i belong under your skin
by Suk-fong
Summary: She's a ghost girl. (Welcome to the Hunger Games Annie Cresta)


**disclaimer:** disclaimed.  
><strong>dedication:<strong> Liana. Birdie you wanted this  
><strong>notes:<strong> A dark take on Annie and Finnick and the Seventieth Annual Hunger Games. I am very much against Finnick being her mentor for so many reasons, and it was never said in canon so I never will do this unless you're Birdie who can basically make do anything.  
><strong>pairing:<strong> Annie/Finnick

* * *

><p>By nineteen you have it down to a fucking art form; six blue bitter pills that taste like dry rot when you hold them on your tongue trying to see how long they last before your saliva dissolves them that you crush under the heel of your palm into a finite powder you sweep into the blown-glass cup one of your clients made that looks like your dick.<p>

It's funny you see, he loves it when he fucks you in the mouth, loves your cock so fucking much that he made you a tumbler the shape of it.

Funny.

One shot of Everclear to give it some punch, and then protein powder because you need to keep up your muscle bulk even though the arena is five years ago, and you don't need to do anything but fuck and drink and watch the fish die because of overfishing, and your tributes die as well because they aren't Finnick Odair.

Everyone knows the Capitol doesn't give a rusty screwdriver fuck about District Four if you're not fucking Finnick Odair.

See that? It's multilayer. Get on the same fucking level.

You top your daily overdose cocktail with one crushed vitamin C, and fill the dick cup with water. You gargle, swish and swallow.

Now you can have your coffee.

* * *

><p>It's not a day you're proud of, or enjoy.<p>

It's Reaping Day or the day where a village chooses by random draw the child they're going to butcher for the sins of the people seventy years go.

What a hell of a celebration.

Several thousand people died in a rebellion, so how to make them never forget? Twenty-three children in a pit of some sadist's wet dream butchering themselves as sacrifice. It's a great metaphor, murdering kids-you're basically murdering hope.

Not really subtle are you, Snow.

The first year, way back when sleeping pills were only once a night, just so you never dreamed because you harpooned that girl your nets and yeah, you enjoyed it, because it was one down and four left to go and fuck you hate yourself for that, you couldn't say anything when Esmerelda Cresta and Jackson Somme- both of them older than you, who walked without making sound because that had been real careers the type that Four sends in and wins- lined up on the stone stage, their faces drawn in steep lines and grey like old driftwood.

Twenty-four go, twenty-three stay.

Great odds.

Some guy from District Six, detoxing over whatever the fuck they snort in that wasteland found Esmerelda on the fifth day. You thought, from where you were sucking off Jemma Dior's stepson with the Games playing in the back that it would be quick.

You didn't really know what a junkie would do.

She screamed and screamed and the stepson was laughing because it was so funny. You were fucking him when Esmerelda was getting fuck too.

_Parallels, Finn! It's like you're in the Games again._

You weren't her mentor-they don't let you mentor until you're eighteen, but they let you fuck the highest bidder because you didn't look like you had turned fifteen five weeks earlier.

And the next door neighbour's boat crashed against the reef, and it would be so horrible if there was another accident, right?

Shut up, sit down, dick out and open your mouth.

Prettiest most expensive whore in all of Panem.

This is what winning is.

Somme died by mutts.

The next year, you knew how to smirk better, and look with hooded eyes, the type that eye fuck the crowd in a whole but make everyone feel that's it just you and them with their back against a brick wall and you hand down their pants stroking.

Niles Tremblay and Nimue Park didn't make it past the cornucopia; not that you would actually know, you were too busy eating some old lady's cunt when the Games began and by the time Nimue's canon was gone, you were cutting a line on the turquois tile in her bathroom before you fucked her like she paid seventy-eight thousand for the night.

Which she did.

You've gone up higher.

You'd be thrilled if you actually got that money.

How fucking expensive was that goddamn trident anyway?

Now you don't remember them, two shots of whiskey and three of mouth wash to make the whiskey disappear from your breathe.

And they pass, like ants with names that you pretend to know because it's important to keep up the looks even though you all know that no one comes out from the Games alive from District Four anymore.

Maybe the other districts are pissed you won-you weren't supposed. No one wins at fourteen.

But you're Finnick goddamn Odair. You're different. You're special.

You're the reason why Capitol men let themselves bend over so you fuck them because they don't like men, but you're not a man.

You're Finnick fucking Odair.

Remember that as you lean against the chair you've got, letting the cold sea air hit your bare chest because shirts are things of the past and no one actually realizes how goddamn cold it is in the morning by the water.

You're completely unimpressed, thinking of the little vile of pale white pills in the back corner of your jeans that you have to make sure you don't crush them because that would just be a pity.

So you miss the reaping-the raping of innocent the signing of a death under eighteen by fucking chance and it doesn't register until you see the girl, small and lithe like she's the one pulled by the undertoe to a shipwreck death, with dark hair in waves and green eyes glossy like marbles.

You know her.

But she's fucking dead.

Esmerelda Cresta died years ago and yet here she is walking up the stage, pretty as a picture in a dress too big for her, and a look of forlorn acceptance.

You choke on air.

You didn't go too hard and you've never had this reaction before but fuck are the ghosts of all the people who you couldn't come back going to haunt him?

'Annie,' the stupid one with the paper-the…fuck you can't remember the name. 'Congratulations. May the odds ever be in your favour.'

Annie.

Annie not Esmerelda.

And oh Christ, now you can see the difference. She's smaller, and there's a roll to her feet like she's been trained to dance or to fight.

Her eyes aren't optimistic, but sad and accepting and she looks at you out of the corner of her eye with derision and disgust.

Good.

She won't try to fuck you.

* * *

><p>You don't give a flying fuck about what happens next, and when the Tributes-walking dead people, let's be fucking real.<p>

After the ceremony you make it to the bathroom, swaggering in a way that has a purpose because you just fucking cannot right now.

The white pills from your pocket, you take two, dry swallowing and you stare at yourself in the clean shiny mirror.

So this is what it's like being a dead man still alive.

It fucking sucks.

Water on your face doesn't do anything but make you wet and you look to pale under the tan skin, bronze to way that is truly unhealthy but no one cares about skin cancer when you have the Capitol skin care routine.

You slap yourself. It stings and you might not be in the Arena ever again, but god you have learnt not to let go of your training because someone is going to kill someday somehow and you will not go down without a fucking fight.

By the time you need to leave the bathroom, you're sore and aching and the pills are just starting to give you an out of focus buzz, and that's exactly what you need when Esmerelda Cresta's ghost is sitting across from you in the train.

Annie Cresta doesn't talk.

Which makes her different because Esmerelda never shut up. You figured at eighteen it was a nervous tick, a way of reassuring herself she was alive but you didn't really know what to do because you weren't really a mentor just a whore so you just sat and listened.

Or rather, as you wait longer, Annie Cresta doesn't talk to you. She talks to the sixteen year old boy who you don't even give a fuck about because there is a real life ghost in front of you and jesus these drugs are not working but Mags is watching you like a hawk or a shark or some animal that will cut your throat with your teeth-it was Mags' schtick a long time before Enobaria was weaponless- if you indulge in the only way you don't have to fucking feel on this train.

But Mags doesn't get it, it is different for her. There is reason why back then, when she can remember the Dark Days, the original rebellion. It was a fucking punishment.

This is just death.

Some sort of appeasement for the Capitol who thinks they're gods.

No one is a god when they're screaming when your mouth is between their legs. They're just humans who love power and pain more than they love air.

It's almost time for your sleeping pill vodka tonic, and Mags has long since left for bed with the boy.

'You promised.'

You stop; Annie isn't looking at you, but out the window at the blurring landscape. But there's no one else she could be talking to.

'I don't make promises sweetheart,' you say. You don't.

Promises are just ropes around the neck something to pull and strangle you with until there's nothing left.

'You said you would bring her back.'

Oh fuck.

You did make a promise, back when all you could do was feel and you just couldn't have someone else die.

You had forgotten of the girl, just a wisp of a girl like the wind would blow her away, when she cornered you fire and brimstone on her eyes-no a tsunami-no not a tsunami she wasn't going to drown you, you know how to swim but it felt like she was raking you over hot coals when she demanded you bring her sister back.

'Don't mothers tell their girls not to trust Finnick Odair?' you say and you try to smirk when it feels like your heart is your throat.

Oh.

Didn't know you still had one.

She looks at you and it feels like burning; like your skin is disintegrating into dust and blowing away in the wind lost forever.

You mouth runs dry like too much sea water and you're parched for a drink but before you can stop and say anything she pushes past you, careful not to touch you.

Oh jesus fuck you want a hit so bad right now you're making indents on your palms with your nails, bruising yourself just to get some fucking feeling other than all this shit god fucking hell jesus no.

No.

* * *

><p>When you get to the Tribute holding area, you try not to stand too close to Annie Cresta in the elevator. You don't even say good night when you get to your room, dump your bags and rummage like you're from District Twelve, desperate for food in a hard winter for a small glass pill jar that's embroidered with flashy neon thread. You open the pill jar and turn it upside down, shaking the white power all on the bedside table.<p>

Expertly, you arrange it in a straight line, press down on your left nostril and breathe.

Oh lord you can breathe again.

You inhale, exhale, inhale and repeat.

Eventually your heartbeat slows down that you can sit back on the overly lux bed and think. Really, really think.

You've got facts. A lot of them.

Fact one, you won the Sixty-fifth annual Hunger Games when you were fourteen on some sort of a fluke.

Fact two, Snow began to whore you out when you were fifteen.

Fact three, Esmerelda Cresta was reaped at the Sixty-sixth annual Hunger Games, and she died violently.

Fact four, you promised Annie Cresta you would bring Esmerelda Cresta home.

Fact five, Annie Cresta got reaped in the Seventieth Annual Hunger Games.

You fucked up.

You know not to make promises, but you were fifteen and she was fourteen and Esmerelda was eighteen, and why wouldn't Esmerelda be able to do what you did when you were four years younger?

If you think about it, really, really think about then everything would have not been such a shit show if you just died in the Games like you're supposed to.

Thing is, Victors are a different type of people. It's not that you didn't think you should die, it's just that you're physically unable to kill yourself. Every time you feel like you're too close to the edge you ram yourself into a doorknob and vomit up the contents of your stomach.

You adapt and you don't want to die. Not in the marrow of your bones do you want to die, which makes living because you don't do that existential bullshit about living verse existing, your heart is beating, you're living, so fucking hard.

Because dying would be so much better than being fucked every which way by everyone and watching kids go die for something they never did.

Sins of the father for the son bullshit here.

You have a job to do, so you get dressed in Capitol clothes, that always never really involves a shirt, and leave.

You don't want to hear Annie say to Mags, 'He really is an asshole,' but you do and guess what ghost girl, you are an asshole.

You leer and you jeer and you're the man good mothers warn their daughters about because you know you're too fucked up with edges drawn from ice and blood that people prick themselves and bleed on you.

You're no good.

Maybe you were, but that's five years and seven lives ago. And that's only seven people you killed yourself. There's eight people dead because of you.

Well maybe not you.

Because you weren't a mentor, just the whore, the District Four boy who loves the Capitol too much.

And you ferried them on to their death, a Victor, a survivor full of children like the Pied Piper to a slaughter house.

Murderer, monster, whore, asshole, Victor.

All of these things and more you've written in white powder, in blood on your arms, on your chest that you've carved and they've scarred over and disappeared because why would you have scars?

Scars aren't sexy.

Except when they are, when they hint to danger and remind them what they've bought.

A Victor.

* * *

><p>When you come back, it's almost three and everyone should be asleep but Annie Cresta is curled up like a cat on the leather sofa, with the bed spread from your bed you think-why the hell was she in your room?<p>

Only when you get closer do you realize it's her own bed spread.

'You're up late,' she says, and there's smoke in her voice when you inhale you burn your lungs.

'Were you waiting?' It's your Capitol voice, slippery like oil and it leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

'No.'

You don't believe her, but you don't have anything to say so you stand, hovering between your bedroom and the couch, staring at a ghost girl who breathes fire stare at you like you are nothing but an afterimage, and she's bored of you already.

'The bed would be more comfortable,' you say and she looks at you, one eyebrow quirked and you realize what you mean and oh fuck.

Well then. Jesus that is not what you meant not with a ghost girl whose only an afterimage just waiting to die in the Arena.

She's pretty but she's not the way you think you can think about because god that is a bad idea because people can't be attractive.

Not when they're Tributes.

Pretty Tributes survive long enough until when survival instincts take in and then who knows where they'll fall.

If they're lucky, it'll be dead on the ground.

There's electricity in the moments that pass and you wonder how badly this will blow up-you don't fuck Tributes, you're not a last fuck not when you can choose who you fuck.

'She slept there,' Annie tells you, whisper quiet and the words float like eels between them. 'I can't…I can't.'

Oh. Right.

You don't know how many siblings there are that can reaped; you know Gloss and Cashmere are volunteers, so they're different. But making someone sleep in the same bed as their dead sister is cruel.

'We can trade.'

She's surprised, you can tell that by the way her eyes light up a bit differently in the darken room.

'It's fine.'

You go to bed.

* * *

><p>You've never been able to sleep in the Capitol, you've managed to get this half sleep phase that makes you toss and turn and roll around until it's an acceptable time to wake up and start the morning routine where you substitute Everclear for coffee, and it works just as well and makes you feel like your entire body is on vibrate.<p>

Well it's not like you aren't a human vibrator.

Or a human dildo.

It's funny, you can laugh.

You kind of have to.

But when you leave the room, the ghost girl, and the boy-fuck what is his name?-are long gone, off to training and you get to have breakfast with Mags.

She's not happy with you; she can see the way your pupils are dilated so wide it's like your eyes look like coal instead of green like seawater in a storm.

You only know that your eyes look like seawater in a storm because someone-one of your buyers, is particularly poetic and told you that write after you fucked her with your fingers.

'You're late.'

'I didn't realize I had a schedule.'

You get a look, one that makes you remember getting water dumped on your head when you didn't want to wake up in time, that makes you cringe with the memory of ice water soaking your sheets.

'She needs a mentor.'

There are so many questions, the first being when did he become her mentor, but they don't matter because it's a short story in the life of Annie Cresta and he's the one who's going to write the end with a cheerful _and she was murdered pointlessly in the Seventieth Annual Hunger Games._

'Then maybe you should take her. You manage to get them out alive.'

You leave then.

* * *

><p>When you come back with the taste of a man's jizz on your lips that whiskey can't wash out and you think you need three pills and a soldering gun to get the taste off your tongue, you're stuck again with the sight of Annie Cresta, huddled on the couch.<p>

'Hey,' you say.

'Hi.'

'How was training?'

You have to ask, it's the least you can do by being a mentor.

Her silence is enough of an answer.

'I fucked up,' you say, remembering a time a long time ago when you were at the plant one, and mixed the leaves up, tripping and accidently setting off a chain reaction. You were new to the growth spurt, an almost adult, tall and lanky just getting used to your bones.

The look on her face is one that is carefully blank, but you can tell she's laughing at you biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself.

'Really?'

'When I was training,' you say, reiterating because you can hear the comments that you know she's saying because she would be the type of person to make comments like that. You bet she has a dry wit, and a great deadpan. 'I tripped, and it just worked out that me landing and hitting the table, set of a spring-loaded spear. They said I set off the traps from the other side of the room.'

'I remember that,' she says. 'I thought you were brilliant.'

You laugh, and it's self deprecating. 'Not brilliant, just clumsy.'

'Lucky too.' There's a smile on her face, a sliver and you think she could have been beautiful if she got to live.

'That too.'

'The guy from Seven-whatever his name is-asked me how many times I blew you to get you my mentor,' Annie tells you. Well fuck. You weren't expecting that. Well actually you sort of were. 'When he was practising shooting, I tripped and hit his leg and his shot went into the wall.'

Your eyebrows are raised, you weren't expecting that.

'Why?'

'I don't want people to be known as the girl who gave Finnick Odair head,' she tells you matter of fact and you do laugh.

You laugh because everyone wants to fuck you but wow, Annie Cresta really hates you for the death of her sister because she doesn't want to fuck you.

'You're an odd one.'

'No,' Annie says and again she looks at you and you want to know why she feels like she's lighting a match to your heat because you run hot under her gaze. 'No I'm normal.'

'Fine, then what do you want to be known as?'

She shrugs, 'I don't know, the girl who lived?'

It falls flat, and your heart begins to palpate like it's going to explode-holy fuck you are way too young to be dying by a heart attack but what the hell.

She's going to die.

Annie Cresta is a ghost girl and you knew this, haven't forgotten this but wow this is not something you want to happen.

'I'm going to die aren't I?' she says, soft like moonlight. 'I'm going to die like Es…oh fuck I was…fuck.'

You stick your hands in your pockets, rubbing the palms against the rough denim of your pants. You don't know what to do, but the thing is you do. You know this moment, this overwhelming bleakness, trying to accept that you will die after already accepting it.

You hand catches on the small bag of white powder, you toss at her.

'Seriously?' she asks, catching it, holding it up by slender small fingers, looking at like it's crystal in the moon light.

'It helps you forget,' you say, feeling self-conscious. You don't do this.

You don't share you drugs, you way of coping because god you don't want people to know. It's just one of the many secrets of Finnick fucking Odair.

The best fucking whore, always for a good time, burning his brain with white powder ironically called snow just so he can fucking sleep without screaming himself hoarse because there are seven kids who are dead dead dead like fucking animals because you speared them like shiskabobs and oh god you just want to live but fuck you should have died.

'Really?'

'No. But it makes everything less.'

She weighs your words, before ripping the small bag open and making a small mountain of powder on the coffee table.

You move beside her, so close you can feel her body heat but you touch.

'Let me,' you cut two lines, about three inches long and you watch her hesitate. Her eyes are a storm, infused with steel but there's hesitation. You wait.

She leans forward, one hand pressing against her nostril, the other holding back her long twisting waving hair and she inhales. She coughs and sputters half way through the line, common for someone who's never snorted before, but she recovers and finishes the line.

She sits back and exhales, her eyes closes and her head tilt. You can feel her hair on your arm.

'You've got some-'you move without thinking, touching her in the valley by her nose where some powder has stuck.

It's electric down your spine, every nerve on fire and she's so cold to touch but you feel like you're on fire.

You let go of her face and do your line without a break, inhaling you sit back and you try not to think but oh you can only think.

You leave her on the couch and go to bed.

* * *

><p>You don't sleep, but you do.<p>

You only leave bed when it's four in the afternoon and someone needs you to fuck their daughter because she can't get a boyfriend.

When you come back, it's only ten at night but Mags and the boy-jesus what is his name-are in bed.

Annie, the ghost girl, the girl who burns you while feeling ice cold and the girl who snorted a line with you in the moon light, the girl whose sister you got killed, is waiting for you.

'Seven.'

You blink, and then you figure it out. 'That's not too bad. It's average.'

'So I won't be the first person to die, maybe I'll make it to the third day.'

'Don't do a feast.'

'I'm about to die, not stupid.'

You rock on the balls of your feet. This is too real but what else would it because she was always going to die.

She was always going to die.

'Night Annie,' you say and you go to your room. Tomorrow when you wake up, she'll be in a race against time.

* * *

><p>There's a knock on your door, and you fall out of bed, sheets tangled around you feet, and fuck you do have to shave tomorrow morning-this morning whenever the fuck it's more awake time.<p>

You're not sure what you're expecting but Annie in the doorframe, with moon light isn't really on your list.

'What you said, earlier about the couch being uncomfortable,' she shifts on her feet, looking you straight in the eye, playing with the hemline of the off white nightie that's a bit too big for Annie Cresta. 'And your bed being open, is that still a thing?'

Oh.

Oh.

She's asking.

She's asking and you know what she's asking and she's waiting and this is something that you don't really know what to say.

Actually you do.

'Yeah, yeah it is.'

You move aside and she walks past you, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at you like she's waiting for you to make a move. You close the door, and you walk towards her.

You're in between her legs and you can count every eye lash, and every freckle on her face but you still haven't touched her.

'You sure?'

'Yeah.'

You kiss her.

It's a tumble backwards, with wisps of fabric, her cotton nightie, your boxers are just things that stop you from feeling skin in between.

It's frantic and fast and when it's skin on skin and you're whispering words that blur, that you mumble into her hairline, into her mouth as she drags her nails down your back and you want forever in heart beats and oh you're not a whore right now, no you're a boy-no a man and she's a woman and oh oh oh

You fall asleep listing to her heartbeat, blankets twisted around your waist and sweat drying on your skin.

When you wake up, the bed is empty and the television says that a cannon has already gone off.

* * *

><p>AN: Again this isn't at all how I think Annie's games went, but Birdie asked me to write her a dark one so I did.

My tumblr is seevikifangirl


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